May 15, 2013

In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows. As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

I saw a story last night that the Division Director, Lois Lerner made a point to walk the application for the charity run by Obama's half-brother through the process and backdated the tax exemtion date

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years.

According to the organization’s filings, Lerner approved the foundation’s tax status within a month of filing, an unprecedented timeline that stands in stark contrast to conservative organizations that have been waiting for more than three years, in some cases, for approval.

Lerner also appears to have broken with the norms of tax-exemption approval by granting retroactive tax-exempt status to Malik Obama’s organization,

The best MIP on Sirius radio's LEFT (ie, liberal talk radio) channel could come up with was "Bush did it too" and that there was no uproar back then.

I haven't reviewed any of the info they cited yet, though I used the Catch app to record it. In any case, there was no recognition of how wrong it is, just that it's business as usual and we're still racists for point it out.

Of course, this is the crew that believes we dropped nukes on Japan and not Germany because German is full of white people.

The IRS employees, who were likely libruls, were surely trying to preserve their role in big guvmint. Ironically, their actions may have hastened the demise of their jobs if we end up with a flat tax or national sales tax.

One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.Link.

phx is going to have see a little more "data" and "work" and "background info" and "research" and "wait for the investigations to be complete" and "make sure only credible sources are cited" and "have the information made available in an easy to consume format" and "at an hour when he/she is available" in order to actually comment substantively.

I suspect the IRS agents were forced to do it. Maybe they were perfect targets because they themselves are progressives, and hey - no problem! Or perhaps not. Perhaps the long tentacle of the win-at-all-costs Obama administration had something to do with it.

As we see with the Benghazi testimony - anyone who dare speak out against Obama and Hillary or anyone in the Obama administration is told "How dare you!", demoted, accused as hostile or "partisan", and cast into the pit.

In any case, there was no recognition of how wrong it is, just that it's business as usual and we're still racists for point it out.

This is why I believe the country is polarized beyond hope. Most of the leftwing commentaty I've read by and large thinks that not only was there anything wrong with this but the IRS was justified.in doing so. It was wrong if it occurred under Bush and its wrong now. But liberals being nothing more than closet authoritarians simply don't care and think such activity is justified as long as they are in charge.

A little advice to the progressives who are feeling cross about all this and struggling to defend this administration:

Don't make the mistake of a lot of my right-wing friends during the Bush Administration.

They went all-in, defending anything and everything, at the expense of good sense and principle. They still aren't free of the hangover. Many still won't admit they took it too far, although some do; it can just be that hard to admit you were wrong.

The government is simply too big for President Obama to keep track of all the wrongdoing taking place on his watch, his former senior adviser, David Axelrod, told MSNBC. “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast,” he explained.

-- You really don't understand what is happening, do you? Conservative groups were pulled aside for additional scrutiny; the IRS has admitted that information that was asked from them was illegal and unethical.

That one liberal group happens to have been denied says nothing about the pattern of behavior.

Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast,” he explained.

Yet these idiots want to grow it even more. It must be said that when a guy like Axelrod is using the government is too big defense as to why Obama is clueless, liberals can't even appreciate how stupid they sound. Lucky for them they have an equally stupid constituency to keep voting for them.

The news that NO conservative group got processed for 27 months while scads of liberal groups were processed, nationwide, puts to bed the idea this was only "a few poorly managed, misguided IRS agents in a small Cincinnati IRS branch office.

The agents were not misguided. They were guided.Nationwide, not just in a corner office in Cincinnati.

Guided by who?

Perhaps guided is the incorrect word.They were ordered.Ordered by higher-ups. And likely told if any concerns were raised that they had nothing to worry about, it came from high on up in DC, and they were just implimenting policy.

"As with the Tea Party groups, the IRS sought copies of promotional materials, backgrounds of officers, meeting minutes and specifics about activities, such as get-out-the-vote drives, that the organization said it would conduct."

-- Did it ask them for family members information, private social media posts and other such information? The article -says- it is the same, but leaves out the things that would make it the same. Note: The IRS asked for information about family members -unrelated to the actual group being looked into.-

BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir.

State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.

There is literally no evidence this denial was wrongly determined based on current law, nor is there any evidence they were targeted for their political positions. So in garage's desperate desire to distract he's managed to miss both of the objectionable facts. I'd like to claim surprise, but let's be serious. Garage is incapable of principled arguments.

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency.

IRS officials claimed on Friday that roughly 300 groups received additional scrutiny. Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Tuesday that the number has actually risen to 471. Further, they said it is “unclear” whether Tea Party and other conservative groups are being targeted to this day

Matthew Sablan said....-- You really don't understand what is happening, do you?

Of course he does. You don't consign yourself to being perceived as a partisan shill for dismissing any downside to your party - no matter what the impact on trust in the social contract between citizen and government is - without understanding and embracing the stakes.

You want good fishing conversation, garage is your man. Garage is your go to guy when you want a hind tit sucking democrat/union apologist too.

This is a quandary for me since I always try to see redeeming qualities in someone who also appreciates Labradors and fishing but damned if garage doesn't make that a challenge.

...The thrust of the new It Takes A Village program is clearly providing more government coordination in disasters. "The project," said CDC, "is intended to improve community preparedness and response and to strengthen resiliency, which will reduce injury related morbidity and mortality in public health emergencies and strengthen community and national recovery in the aftermath...."

We elected a machine politician to the White House. So we get nationwide machine politics.

The DC press won't talk about this.

I've never heard David Gregory ask Barack Obama or David Axelrod about how Mr. Obama unseals sealed records in order to win his elections. That's a pillar of Chicago machine politics, but you can never get the DC press to ask about it.

More should be made of Obama's joke about conducting audits on his enemies. It wasn't a directive to the IRS, but it certainly established an atmosphere of permission. He caught more flak for commenting on the good looks of the California attorney general. Maybe rightly so. If the President can make such comments, it gives others permission to comment on the file clerk's high perky tits in their own workplace. These IRS audits happened not because the President ordered them but because the President wanted them.

Garage: But were they denied -because they were liberal?- That's the key. The conservative groups suffered view point discrimination; the liberal ones, for all we know, had bad bookkeeping with money, were too overtly political (Which is nearly impossible in the current world), or didn't do their paperwork properly.

Part of this, the report said, was due to unclear guidance in the law. “Regulations do not define how to measure whether social welfare is an organization’s ‘primary activity,’” the IG said.

In a response to the IG report, Joseph Grant, the acting IRS commissioner for tax-exempt and government entities, also pointed to confusion over how to enforce the law. “There are no bright lines for what constitutes political campaign intervention,” Grant wrote.

What Obama requires is another relaxing vacation. This time, the man needs a visit to Happy Land.

So please take my hand, Mr. President, and we'll fly there, over those political storm clouds in Washington, to where things were just about perfect:

Back home to Chicago. Grant Park. November 2008.Can you remember the looks of genuine adoration in their eyes?

Some were so overcome they couldn't help but weep for joy. Others barely stopped their lips from twitching. Still others were wiggly with excitement, like puppies unable to keep still, and we know what puppies do when they're excited.Many hugged and offered high-fives, or loudly clapped, or clinked glasses and gave each other profound smiles of satisfaction and joy.

And that was just the journalists.

The rest of Obama's voters were ecstatic too. But as historians will no doubt tell us, American journalists were especially thrilled.Not all. A few grumpy types complained that messianic politics is never healthy for the Republic. But who could listen with all that joy in their ears?

The Republican establishment — the War Party — had been vanquished, and deservedly so, for talking out of both sides of its mouth about the need for a smaller government while feeding from that monstrous defense industry trough. They're in the wilderness still, and should remain there for a while.

And Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton had already had her wings clipped. Remember? She and Bill had dared suggest that Obama had played the old Chicago race card on her in the Democratic presidential primary — that primary of the 3 a.m. phone call. The media response was to crush her.

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

"This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents," the complaint reads. "No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records," it continued.

According to the case, the IRS agents had a search warrant for financial data pertaining to a former employee of the John Doe company, however, "it did not authorize any seizure of any healthcare or medical record of any persons, least of all third parties completely unrelated to the matter," the complaint read.

The class action lawsuit against the IRS seeks $25,000 in compensatory damages "per violation per individual" in addition to punitive damages for constitutional violations. Thus, compensatory damages could start at a minimum of $250 billion.

The government is simply too big for President Obama to keep track of all the wrongdoing taking place on his watch, his former senior adviser, David Axelrod, told MSNBC. “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast,” he explained.

IRS agents are government employees. The TEA Party wants to shrink the size of government. Some people are looking to preserve their phoney-baloney jobs. It ain't rocket science. Funny thing is that Holder just admitted the TEA Party is right. The government is to big to control. Too bad Nixon isn't around. He would be enjoying this turn of events. It's official folks; the prez is now Trickey Barry Milhouse-Hussein Obama.

The "tea party" groups are political and come under (c)(3), not (c)(4), which is for "social welfare" organizations.The distinction is important for both reporting requirements and what is tax exempt activities.

What the groups received was not "additional scrutiny," but harassment. The IRS knew that the registrations could not ultimately be denied; it was just about delay, cost, frustration, and of course, milking for information that then was (most illegally) passed on to other entities.

And it is not just the IRS. The EPA also waves fees and expedites processing for favored ("green" or political) requests, while dragging their feet and charging the full monty to applicants not in favor.

Garage: Your link -doesn't- though. It doesn't say they were harassed due to their politics; it doesn't show that they had equal treatment to conservative groups (there's no mention of harassingly asking for details about unrelated family and social media posts, unless I missed those when I skimmed.) These denials may have, simply, been routine denials.

The "tea party" groups are political and come under (c)(3), not (c)(4), which is for "social welfare" organizations.The distinction is important for both reporting requirements and what is tax exempt activities.

How do you define "political"? How can the IRS?

How could they tell the difference between a group that teaches about the constitution and whether or not that makes them political?

These rule sets, as they cannot be universally defined, are poor upon reflection and completely wreckless based on the factual evidence we have. Who the hell does the IRS think they are assuming they are the dictionary?

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

As I said the other day, if you don't think these people would leak electronic health records, you're dumb.

Matthew Sablan said..."Garage: Your link -doesn't- though. It doesn't say they were harassed due to their politics; it doesn't show that they had equal treatment to conservative groups (there's no mention of harassingly asking for details about unrelated family and social media posts, unless I missed those when I skimmed.) These denials may have, simply, been routine denials"

Correct.

The article itself is utterly devoid of any information that would actually allow the reader to come to a conclusion about whether or not disparate treatment for conservative groups actually occurred.

Which, of course, is the intent of just such piece.

More typical, everyday and humdrum lefty deflection.

Of course, more actual and alleged IRS abuse is surfacing everyday, for example, just today:

The Internal Revenue Service, under pressure after admitting it targeted anti-tax Tea Party groups for scrutiny in recent years, also had its eye on at least three Democratic-leaning organizations seeking nonprofit status.

As if it is supposed to mean anything.

I mean, 500 conservative groups were targeted and 3 left leaning ones were, so why not pretend they are exactly the same?

One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries. Link.

IRS agents are government employees. The TEA Party wants to shrink the size of government. Some people are looking to preserve their phoney-baloney jobs. It ain't rocket science. Funny thing is that Holder just admitted the TEA Party is right. The government is to big to control. Too bad Nixon isn't around. He would be enjoying this turn of events. It's official folks; the prez is now Trickey Barry Milhouse-Hussein Obama.

Being denied that status is a declarative statement. They were denied, not approved, they got their answer, there is no free speech chill in that regard. Are you trying to compete with neutron stars for density comparisons?

The IRS singled out tea party and other conservative groups for “burdensome” scrutiny because of their politically charged names and delayed approving some applications for so long that the groups simply gave up, according to an official government audit, released Tuesday

It's sad, your entire identity is tied up in leftwing politics. Your failures in academia, your failed marriage and personal life, loss of custody of your daughter, you literally have nothing good going as an individual.

So you get engrossed in lefty politics, you try and give some meaning to your life as part of the collective. It's Bushe's fault you are a failure, its Scott Walker who is to blame for the disintegration of your family.

Must be rough for you, first Walker gets resoundingly endorsed by your home state, and now your last best great black lefty hope is going down in flames.

If/when you decide to kill yourself, please do it in a manner that is respectful to others. Think "Bitchtits was here" ala Shawshank Redemption rather than pulling a Speedbump Tsarenov.

Careful Jay. The sainted caplight will come riding in on a white horse and yell at you because "Garage Mahal DOES NOT lie!".

Meanwhile, if you read the link he posted, you'll see that one of the 3 groups was approved and 2 withdrew.

And yet...

Ah, skip it. Garage is a lying sack of crap. I used to have some respect for him.

He's like the party girl that used to just party cuz she liked it herself, then she had to keep doing it cuz no one would actually go buy her dinner and take her on a real date, they just picked her up, bought a 6 pack, fucked her and left her to walk home alone.

How likely do you think it is that someone high up at the IRS said: "Sure someone might catch on, but by then the election will be over." Nate Silver says it's about a 99.5% chance. OK, he didn't, but only because nobody he knows is asking.

"Maybe the Tea Party didn't know they could still operate before its application for tax-exempt status was approved. "

Maybe they were scared off by the IRS telling them if they didn't provide every little bit of information they could be charged with perjury?

Like if the IRS wants a list of what kind of reading material your group favors and you say "The US Constitution, fuckwad" but someone in your group read Atlas Shrugged and mentions it on your group's website, you get the full weight and terror of the most efficient terror cell in world history down on your head.

How did we get to the point that the IRS is rationing our First Amendment rights?

The same way we got to the point were the IRS are going to ration access to health insurance exchanges, waivers and subsidies -- enough voting-eligible citizens acquiesced to it. The rationing will go something like this:

Greetings, citizen. I'm a frightening and inquisitive gov't official. Would you like to sign this pre-printed ballot, or should I just tear up your health-care access card here and now?

Just stating the obvious. Everyone is thinking the same thing. With such obsession, there are only two possibilities: either you are a weak moby or somewhere in the past you lost some sweet Garage love. I just think someone should tell you that your slip is showing.

You have to listen carefully."Common Cause" and Karl Rove's "Crossroads" are 501-(c)(4) organizations and engage in political lobbying.

Most of the "tea party" (with lower case t's) organizations ask for 501-(c)(3) status, which makes them exempt from income taxes, but limits them to "educational" efforts; they are supposed to not go overtly partizan politcal.

The MSM (and such people as Garage) tries to make it all look like one vast right-wing conspiracy concocted by Karl Rove and the Westboro Baptist Church, so the conflate the different organizations and categories to cause as much confusion as they can.

The German Home-School refugees should go into hiding. How many illegal aliens do we already have here? It should not be hard to set up an underground railroad for them and move them around to friendly jurisdictions. Maybe they could learn Spanish.

"David Axelrod, after having fought for five years to blow up the size of government to Leviathan scale, now uses the size of government to excuse Obama's scandals-- No man could run a "government so vast."

Who cares? They're Tea-thuglicans and deserve to be stomped on. I'm with Media Matters on this one - it's time to use the full FORCE of the government to stamp out the SCOURGE of right-wing politics FOREVER.

"David Axelrod, after having fought for five years to blow up the size of government to Leviathan scale, now uses the size of government to excuse Obama's scandals-- No man could run a "government so vast."

Alex: "Who cares? They're Tea-thuglicans and deserve to be stomped on. I'm with Media Matters on this one - it's time to use the full FORCE of the government to stamp out the SCOURGE of right-wing politics FOREVER"

Alex, give it up.

There is no sarcastic over the top comment you can make to illustrate the lefts hypocrisy and extremism because the left routinely exceeds it.

Julian Bond weighs in on the affair. Those racists tea partiers had it coming:

Julian Bond, chairman emeritus of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, joined anchor Thomas Roberts on MSNBC on Tuesday where he said that he did not believe the federal government was complicit in any wrongdoing given the news that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative groups for added scrutiny. He said that it is right of the government to look into the Tea Party, which he called “overtly racist” and the “Taliban wing of American politics.” Bond made these comments after noting that his group was illegitimately targeted by the IRS in 2004.

Bond said that his group was singled out by the IRS in 2004 after he delivered a political speech critical of President George W. Bush. Though his organization was later cleared, Bond said that his group was “unfairly targeted.”

However, Bond said that there are no parallels between that case and the charge that the IRS devoted undue scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

One of those groups, Emerge America, saw its tax-exempt status denied, forcing it to disclose its donors and pay some taxes. None of the Republican groups have said their applications were rejected.

Progress Texas, another of the organizations, faced the same lines of questioning as the Tea Party groups from the same IRS office that issued letters to the Republican-friendly applicants. A third group, Clean Elections Texas, which supports public funding of campaigns, also received IRS inquiries.

You'd think garage would realize the zero denials fact makes the extra scrutiny and delay even more outrageous. But that would require he think critically about the talking points he was given instead of just regurgitating them. So no chance.

There wouldn't be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months. In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows. As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

Uh huh:When tax agents started singling out non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in 2010, they looked at first only for key words such as 'Tea Party,' but later they focused on criticisms by groups of "how the country is being run," according to investigative findings reviewed by Reuters on Sunday.

Uh-huh:at the time of the letter, the group was in the midst of the application process for tax-exempt nonprofit status — a process that would stretch for nearly three years and involve queries for detailed information on its social media activity, its organizational set-up, bylaws, membership and interactions with political officials.

The letter threatened to close American PAGE’s case file unless additional information was received within 60 days.

American PAGE first applied for tax-exempt nonprofit status in late 2009. It was granted 501(c)(4) status last year.

Actually went over the the Emerge Now site to look at what they're about.

Emerge America is changing the face of American politics by identifying, training and encouraging women to run for office, get elected and to seek higher office. Our intensive, cohort-based seven-month training program is unique. As the number of elected Democratic women remains flat or even declines, the need for our work is growing across the country.

Second, they seem to be working quite explicitly outside the Democratic Party establishment. Nobody said the Obama Administration loves all on the Left equally, and with a few notable exceptions the Administration has something of a "Boys Club" reputation.

“We write to inquire if the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) is investigating or intends to investigate whether groups designated as “social welfare” organizations, and thus receiving tax and other advantages under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(4), are improperly engaged in a substantial or even a predominant amount of campaign activity,” the letter read.

NB:The IRS used its Gestapo level powers to personally attack traditional Catholic and Protestant religious leaders with Star Chamber demands for appearances at personal audits that singled out their speech on religious issues and demanded to know who hired them. This cost them great time and money producing unnecessary documents and left the Gestapo powers experience hanging over their heads.

If such conduct happened at any other Federal Agency, a Federal Judge would eventually make them pay for it. But the IRS has always been intentionally unregulated and given quasi-terrorist vigilante methods to get the Taxes.

Obama is at the gates using IRS and EPA Federal Agents as his SS Battalions. Will Congress stop him?

Among the criteria used by IRS officials to flag applications was a "Be On the Look Out" list, or a BOLO, which was discontinued in 2012, according to the report. The criteria on the BOLO included:-- Whether "Tea Party," "Patriots" or "9/12 Project" was referenced in the case file.-- Whether the issues outlined in the application included government spending, government debt or taxes.-- Whether there was advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live."-- Whether a statement in the case file criticized how the country is being run.-- Whether it advocated education about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Congenital liar Barack Obama said acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller resigned (ie was fired), but Obama was apparently (and naturally) lying on two counts: First, Miller is still there, he hasn't left the building. Second, his "acting" term ends as previously scheduled in early June.

Hey, remember the other day when you linked 3 times to that silly left wing blog that abjectly lied about the OIG reported related to the false claims that the FBI "spied" on anti-war groups merely for being anti-war?